Monday, May 01, 2006

Two strong messages about just getting on with the writing today. First of all, a quote sent in an email:

"Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time. The approach must involve getting something down on the page: something good, mediocre or even bad. It is essential to the writing process that we unlearn all those seductive high school maxims about waiting for inspiration. The wait is simply too long." --Leonard S. Bernstein

And secondly, an interview with novelist Matthew Sharpe in the current edition of Glimmer Train. Asked whether he thought it important to have a disciplined plan as a writer - writing every day etc, he replied:

"Oh yes. Otherwise I'd die. I think the more you show up at the computer or the writing pad, the more likely it is you will discover the inspiration. There's a nice metaphor, which I am going to mangle, from Mary Oliver, the poet, where she talks about this wild part of yourself that doesn't want to be tamed, but if you show up at the same place and time every day and you offer it your rigor, it will trust you more and it may be more likely to show up, too."

"Sarah Salway is the Madonna of writing books. The dancing one, not the Mother of Jesus one. Except she's younger and has had less plastic surgery. Sarah Salway that is. Also she writes really well."Neil Gaiman

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